Lucky (5 page)

*   *   *

‘I thought,’ said Lucky, ‘that I would come over and bring you up to date on everything. I have so much to tell you.’

It was past noon and she had finally located Gino. They spoke on the phone.

‘I’m tired, kid,’ he said. ‘Gonna take a nap and get myself in shape.’

She was away three weeks and he was too tired to see her. What was going on?

‘Where were you? I called four times,’ she said lightly, knowing that with Gino it was best not to push.

‘Around,’ he replied.

Shacked up with some sleazy showgirl
, she thought.
Seventy-two and still out getting laid.

She gave him a little silent disapproval.

‘I’ll pick you up tonight,’ he offered. ‘We’ll have a quiet dinner, just the two of us. Does eight o’clock suit you?’

An edge of sarcasm. ‘You’re sure you won’t be too tired?’

‘Come
on
, kid. When am I ever too tired for you?’

Now, she wanted to say. But she didn’t. She agreed that eight o’clock was fine, and spent an impatient afternoon waiting to tell him all about her trip, and the deals she had in the works. He would be so proud of her. She couldn’t wait!

*   *   *

‘What happened to you?’ demanded Jess.

‘I wanted to see if this sweater was shrink-proof,’ replied Lennie sarcastically.

‘It’s not.’

‘Oh, really? Then remind me never to go swimming in it again.’

He climbed into the car and she sped off. Her eyes glittered dangerously as she gunned the red Camaro down the Strip at full speed, narrowly missing a lumbering tourist in an I LOVE CHICAGO T-shirt.

‘Shit!’ she muttered.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Haven’t had a hit in years.’

‘You could have fooled me.’

She whirled the car into the parking lot of a supermarket and killed the engine.

‘Gotta get dog chow,’ she announced. ‘And baby stuff, food, things like that.’

‘Doesn’t your old man take care of the shopping?’

‘You experienced lunch. What can I tell you?’ She grimaced.

‘I think we’ve got to talk,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘We will.’

He followed her into the market. A six foot red-head in pink spandex pants and a crocheted boob tube smiled at him. He smiled back.

A short bad-tempered man in a wrinkled white suit whacked her on the ass. ‘Quit it,’ the man said tersely.

The red-head tossed long swirls of hair and pouted.

‘Vegas is full of hookers,’ Jess remarked.

‘Tell me about it,’ replied Lennie.

The groceries came to sixty-three dollars. Lennie insisted on paying, but Jess fought him all the way.

‘You’re broke,’ she said.

‘Not at all.’

‘It’s unnecessary.’

‘Says who?’

‘Me.’

‘Take a walk, monkey face.’

‘Don’t call me that!’

The line behind them applauded when she finally allowed him to pay.

They fell into the parking lot laughing.

A fat boy with long greasy hair was trying to gain entry to the Camaro.

‘Hey!’ yelled Jess indignantly.

The boy continued his assault on the passenger window with a wire coat hanger.

Jess dropped two paper sacks of groceries and charged.

Lennie followed suit. Together they dragged the fat boy from his task. Stoned eyes signalled venom. He lumbered across the parking lot and set to work on a Ford.

‘I don’t
believe
it,’ Lennie said.

‘You’re a New Yorker now, you should believe anything,’ Jess responded sagely.

They retrieved scattered groceries and made it to the house in record time.

Wayland floated on a blue striped mattress in the pool smoking a joint.

Simon cried wildly on a dirty Navajo blanket.

‘Shit!’ muttered Jess.

It appeared to be her favourite expression.

Lennie wondered if he should have booked into a hotel. It looked like Jess had enough problems without a houseguest to complicate matters.

‘Hey, you’re lookin’ good, kid. Atlantic City agreed with you, huh?’ He winked at his daughter.

‘You know something, Gino, for an old man you’re looking pretty good yourself.’

She never called him daddy. Only sometimes, in her mind, when it was late and she was tired and the memories came creeping back to haunt her . . .

‘Cut out the old,’ he snapped.

They grinned at each other, linked arms, and proceeded to her private elevator.

How alike the two of them were. The same smouldering eyes, dark olive skin, jet hair, and wide sensual mouths.

They enjoyed the perfect relationship. So similar in every way. From food to movies to books to people, they almost always formed the same opinions. Gino would say, ‘I don’t trust that guy – not with my left ball I don’t trust him.’ And Lucky would add, ‘Lock up your right one – that dude is bad news.’ Then they would break up laughing, black eyes locking fondly with black eyes.

They maintained separate penthouse apartments atop the two hotels they owned. Gino lived at the Mirage. And Lucky resided in the Magiriano. Together they shared a house outside New York in East Hampton. A white, old-fashioned mansion filled with so many memories . . . so much of their past . . .

Once they had lived in the house as a family. Gino and his wife Maria, with their children, beautiful dark Lucky, and her blond brother, Dario.

Now there was only Gino and Lucky. The two of them against the world. There existed a special bond between them no one could break.

It hadn’t always been that way . . .

*   *   *

Gino Santangelo was born in Italy, and in 1909, at the age of three he travelled to America with his parents, a young, strong couple, filled with ambition, and a desire to capture the great American dream. But jobs were not easy to come by. Too many immigrants, all with the same idea, all brimming with energy and enthusiasm
.

By the time Gino was six, the great American dream had soured. His mother ran off with another man, and Paulo, embittered and disillusioned, embarked on a life of petty crime, drink and loose women
.

When Paulo was in jail, which was often, it didn’t bother Gino. He found himself shuttled between foster homes, and it taught him to be fast and smart, a true street kid with big ambitions. At fifteen he was caught stealing a car, and sent to the New York Protectory for Boys – a tough home in the Bronx for orphans and first-time offenders. The brothers in charge were a hard bunch. Discipline was the order of the day, and messing with the boys the order of the night. Gino was able to protect himself, but some of the younger boys were not so fortunate. A scrawny kid named Costa Zennocotti was hit on constantly. His cries for help went unanswered, until one day Gino could stand the agonized screams coming from a back room no longer. Unthinkingly he picked up a pair of scissors and slipped into the room. Costa was bent across a table, his trousers and shorts around his ankles, while one of the brothers plunged his erectness into the skinny child’s ass. Gino lunged with the scissors
.

The result was a stay in the Bronx County jail, six months’ probation, and a friend for life in Costa, who, as a result of the publicity, was adopted by a well-to-do family in San Francisco
.

By the time Gino hit the streets again he was older and sharper, with a strong urge to make money and beat the system. He had no desire to live with his father – still in and out of jail and now married to a prostitute named Vera. So he looked around and observed the heroes of the day. Men like Salvatore Charlie Luciano (later to be known as the notorious Lucky Luciano), Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. They were the guys with the money, the sleek cars and beautiful women, the power and the respect
.

Gino saw. Gino wanted. Gino got
.

His rise to the top was long and hard but eventually worthwhile. After starting off small, he went into business for himself, operating a thriving bootleg racket. By the time he was twenty-two he had a pretty girlfriend named Cindy, and a rich society mistress by the name of Clementine Duke, whose Senator husband introduced him to the world of investments and real money. Senator Duke made Gino’s money legitimate. When the great stock market crash came in 1929 he was prepared, and thanks to the Senator walked away unscathed
.

Along the way he had acquired a business partner, Enzio Bonnatti, and by 1933 their interests included gambling, loan-sharking, and the numbers racket. Gino refused to touch prostitution and drugs, in spite of pressure from Enzio. Because of this conflict they split their interests in 1934 and went their separate ways
.

For recreation Gino opened a nightclub, called it Clemmies’, and became a minor celebrity. Clementine Duke was delighted. However she was not so delighted by his amazing success with women. She persuaded him to marry Cindy – in the hope that this would take him off the market. But women to Gino were a fatal attraction. He truly loved to make love, having been initiated by one of his foster mothers at the age of twelve, then led to new levels of accomplishment by the very versatile Mrs Duke. Now his conquests were many, and often
.

Cindy soon became as angry and jealous as Mrs Duke. She plotted revenge, slept around, and threatened him with exposure to the Internal Revenue Service for tax evasion
.

In 1938 she fell to her death from a window in their penthouse apartment. An unfortunate accident. Gino gave her a magnificent funeral
.

By 1939 rumblings of a war in Europe were shaking America. Senator Duke sat down with Gino one day and worked out ways to benefit from the situation. Gino went along with everything the older man suggested. The Senator had never advised him badly
.

Gino often wondered how he would be involved if the war spread to America. He needn’t have worried. On New Year’s Eve 1939 he found his father in a tawdry hotel beating up Vera. She was just a cheap whore, but she had been kind to him over the years, and in return he had helped her when he had the means
.

As he came upon the sordid scene, Vera raised the ’38 she was holding and blew Paulo’s brains out. Gino wrestled the gun from her – and later that night was accused and arrested for his own father’s murder. He spent the war years behind bars. Punished for a crime he never committed
.

His old-time friend and now lawyer, Costa Zennocotti, managed to extract a written and witnessed confession from Vera just before her death seven years later. Gino got a pardon and a paltry offer of compensation. What amount of money could possibly compensate for seven years of his life?

In 1949 he decided he needed a change of scene, new interests. Las Vegas was an appealing prospect – and an old friend of his, Jake the Boy – was bugging him to invest. He put together a syndicate, and they financed the building of the Mirage Hotel. Las Vegas was just beginning. Bugsy Siegel had already opened up the Flamingo Hotel and casino (later he was murdered for skimming money), and Meyer Lansky had financed the Thunderbird. Gino wanted in. It was an exciting time. He wanted to enjoy it, have fun, and forget the dark years of being locked away
.

And then he met his wife to be, Maria. She was young, innocent, only twenty – with pale gold hair and the face of a fragile madonna. They were married almost immediately. And in 1950 Lucky was born. Even as a baby she looked just like him
.

They lived in a large white mansion in East Hampton, with eucalyptus trees in the garden and the smell of peace and tranquillity all around
.

To make their world complete, Maria gave birth to a son eighteen months later. They named him Dario. He looked just like his mother
.

*   *   *

The elevator ground to a halt, and Lucky stepped out into the milling crowds filling the casino. She had planned the location of the elevator so that it delivered her right into the centre of action. Unlike Gino, whose own private elevator in the Mirage took him straight to a basement garage where his limousine and driver were on call twenty-four hours a day.

Gino hung back for a moment, his eyes ever watchful. Once a street kid, always a street kid. You could have all the power and money in the world, but it was never enough to protect you one hundred percent.

He felt the slight pressure of his gun carefully concealed in a hidden shoulder holster, and reassured, stepped forward.

Lucky turned to him with a wide grin. ‘Business is booming, huh, Gino?’

‘Yeah, kid. Things are hot.’

Things were always hot in Vegas. The suckers were always on parade with their quarters and dollars, ready and willing to take a gamble, run a risk, win or lose, it didn’t really matter as long as they got their shot.